


Scattershot

by doublejoint



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Punk Hazard Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28205268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Is justice possible?
Relationships: Smoker/Tashigi (One Piece)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Scattershot

More and more, Smoker wonders, in a world like this, with these weapons in their hands and this ship under their feet, if justice is possible, and the coat on his shoulders feels, for a moment, as if it’s going to slip off. He is not the type of person to wonder about possibility; he is the type of person who finds a way to do things, blows past every rule and regulation, and doesn’t worry too much about asking for forgiveness, the confidence of the young and brazen, too green to know to worry, but too green long after his stems have solidified and become weighed down with the woodiness of responsibility. Which is to say, he can no longer keep only himself and his capabilities in mind.

(“It’s strange to see you’ve really grown up,” Hina says to him, smirking around her cigarette, and before she explains herself she’s off to solve problems of her own--because they can’t always bail each other out anymore, only once in a good while, though their weaknesses are the same as they always were, though the thinness in their barks is perhaps not quite so apparent as it once was.)

If justice is possible--and Smoker has to believe it is, has to or he’ll have to look at everything in an uglier light, but perhaps it’s too late to not let that light in already. But if justice is possible, it will take fresh hands, fresh eyes, fresh weapons, things that go beyond his reach, beyond the range he could shoot or stretch his body as smoke. Fujitora pushing to abolish the shichbukai system is a start--but to what end, exactly?

He is still rolling what Kuzan had told him in his thoughts, like a fresh cigar in his hand rolled too long in his fingers. There’s no good in saying these half-formed thoughts--or is there? It’s okay not to have all the answers, sometimes, though he feels, still, as if he should. 

Tashigi’s hands are tented over the top of her coffee cup; the ocean wind is splashing the remnants of Smoker’s, but it’s also probably about the warmth. Her gloves lie under her empty breakfast plate, enough of a weight so that one escaped thumb occasionally captures the breeze. She’s looking at the waves, her brow furrowed, her glasses slipping down her nose. She’s okay with herself, as it is--and that’s not really the right description; she knows her limitations too well, has worn them in and worn them out, thrown dents in them and shoved them farther, and each time she records by exactly how much they move. She tries to answer; she wants to answer; she is all too aware of when she can’t, and finds no use in coating that in bullshit.

And her ideals are too strong for him to shake and shatter with a question like that. He leans nearer to her space, and then into it when she startles and turns toward him, nearly spilling the coffee on her hands. She cuts off the end of his cigars quickly, precisely, with tender fingers on the cutter that stop a hair’s breadth from his chin, as if she wants to let him guard his thoughts if he wishes.

* * *

It is easy to mistake structure for justice, routine and rigidity for bending the future into the right path. And Smoker certainly thinks the path they’re on is the right one, but--everyone thinks their own path is correct, too, do they not? Sometimes all you have is your tunnel vision, and sometimes there’s no one who can check you. Tashigi would, if she thought he was going the wrong way; he knows she would, but she trusts him. He trusts her in return, has seen her raise her shoulders to carry the awkwardness of the burden until she’s learned to manage it, and it’s the least he can do to treasure her trust and treat it right. To treasure the lives and the faith of their men. 

And justice misapplied is no justice at all.

* * *

“Is justice possible?”

The doubt is ugly, sticky on Smoker’s tongue. Tashigi’s hands wobble on either side of her mug.

“Does it matter?”

She looks up at him, eyes running over his face, as if looking for some sort of catch in his expression, something he hadn’t quite said or meant to say. 

“Could you let yourself not look for it?”

She sets her chin, as if she’s looking in a mirror, asking herself the same question--she already has been, though, has she not? Under her coat, under her shirt, there is an angry mark she still won’t talk about, from a confrontation that she cannot yet face in memory. She carries the ideal on her back, still, anyway; she needs to--she can’t lose sight of her ideal, of the sense of justice inside her that Smoker can’t see except in glimpses, except in particular angles of her sword or inflections of her words, the ways they ring true in the air. She can’t not chase it, wildly, until she’s out of breath and falling down, even if it’s not there.

“No.” 

Her eyes are steady, asking again, does it matter? If they reach not justice, but the best they’ll do in this life?

* * *

Perhaps, as long as things continue to change, they can continue to move toward justice, roughly, and even if every move is inexact, it’s better than staying still. Smoker won’t settle for a glass that’s not full enough, but he also can’t always flip the table when he draws a shitty hand with no options.

And even with a shitty hand, he still wins at poker nearly every time they play on the ship; Tashigi’s terrible at masking her emotions and most of their men are no better. When the chips are cleared away and the cards boxed up, when they’re calling it in for the night, he leans back in his chair. His cigars are nearly done, down to the ends; his body aches (it still hasn’t been long since he was out of commission, and still, he feels as if everything’s a massive push sometimes). Tashigi holds her hair tie in her mouth as she redoes her updo, her glasses on the table on top of the box of poker chips. Smoker catches her hand on its way down, just to see her smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I have a lot of thoughts about this, so.


End file.
